BOOK REVIEW
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN FAT A MANIFESTO
Ursula Arens Writer; Nutrition & Dietetics Ursula has a degree in dietetics, and currently works as a freelance nutrition writer. She has been a columnist on nutrition for more than 30 years.
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VIRGIE TOVAR MELVILLE HOUSE LTD. 2018 ISBN: 978-1911545163 PAPERBACK £7.99
Virgie Tovar is fat* and feisty and wants to fight societal rebuke of obese women. She actually wants to cheer all people who are not slim, not white, not hetero, not well-connected and not articulate. But it is only natural that her strongest motivations reflect her own person: fat, gay, Mexican-heritage and strongly feminist. She describes being always fat, but in childhood she felt cherished as queen-like by her family, and it wasn’t until school that taunts began. As self-awareness grew, anxiety and insecurity also grew. She lost some weight over a summer holiday, eating only toast and lettuce, but was disappointed that on return to school, her friends hardly noticed. Virgie has a long list of diets tried and failed that she keeps suitably vague. She also gets mightily peeved at memories of romance with young men who made snide references to her body and casually assumed her dinner-on-a-date would be a nodressing salad. But, she has now cut herself free from fretting about what individual men think of her. In fact, she now wants to be noticed for all the wrong-but-right reasons. Perceptions of beauty and worth are, of course, societal concepts, although I am sure dietitians support healthy weight for disease resistance rather than just for optical acceptance. Virgie mentions the force-feeding fattening camps that young girls in Mauritania need to endure to obtain the heft needed to be considered bride-
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worthy, but obviously this is as bad, or worse, than the slender ideals we (society) seem to cherish. She describes some fat-phobic communication attempts by American health organisations. Giant posters warning about childhood obesity were funded to appear around Atlanta, Georgia. One picture of a fat young boy bears the strapline: ‘Fat prevention begins at home and the buffet line.’ Virgie describes getting the most for your dollar as the obvious and logical behaviour of poorer families, and describes this poster as perpetuating class-based bigotry. The next picture of a fat young girl bears the strapline: ‘It’s hard to be a little girl if you’re not.’ Virgie protests most strongly at the message of being ‘more fat’ means being less feminine. The last picture shows a fat early puberty black girl with the strapline: ‘Fat may be funny to you, but it’s killing me.’ Virgie objects to the portrayal of fat black women as inherently always joking and humorous: it is a racist act of character-framing in the name of public health. There are many organisations that gather to promote awareness of
sensitive and minority issues. Virgie describes some of those supporting fat women, but I get slightly lost in the details describing fatfeminism versus body-positivism. The groups within groups surely all want the same thing: open acceptance of differences and varied life choices (as long as these don’t harm others). Virgie has a little stab at the divergent paths that fat women follow when romance wafts into the room. She laments that women partnered with men, or fat-negative mates, are more likely to return to dieting. She also vents particular annoyance at some people, mainly women, who do the public drama of, “I could only manage the tiniest sliver of birthday cake”. The noteating-in-public show is dishonest and unfair to other fat people who enjoy eating and who want to do so in a social environment, openly and for all to see. This is a small 120-page book about the big topic of social aspects of fattism. Of course we (society) must confess to being fat-phobic, in the way that people who are bald, or have
ginger hair or bad skin, who are less witty and articulate (because their first language is another), who have bad teeth or frizzy hair, who twitch or stutter, suffer unfair disregard. This is difficult terrain for dietitian readers who obviously care so much to support the physical and mental health of fat people. Nobody should be treated with disrespect because of body weight, and freedom to be foolish (in rejecting sensible dietary and lifestyle choices) is an essential libertarian principle I would defend strongly. But while you can argue against people being horrible and mean, you cannot argue the well documented data showing increased risks and adverse effects of being fat, such as Type 2 diabetes. Hopefully, Virgie has always considered dietitians as there to help. Virgie’s book is there to help dietitians who want to become more finely-tuned to the many faces of fattism. *Virgie chooses the descriptor ‘fat’ to describe people of greater body size and weight. www.NHDmag.com April 2019 - Issue 143
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